Sunday, August 24, 2014

"Tying the Knot in the Age of Marriage 2.0"

I've paid attention to old wisdom for a long time, because that wisdom evolved by practice, and all the dross gets burned away after hundreds if not thousands of years. Take traditional wedding vows:

"...my constant friend, my faithful partner and my love from this day forward. In the presence of God, our family and friends, I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow. I promise to love you unconditionally, to support you in your goals, to honor and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live."

Not any more. In some cases, yes, but considering half of people are not getting married, and most divorces are instigated by women...not any more.

I know a couple that got divorced a few years go. They have an eight-year-old son. He got remarried but she has not. She got primary custody of the boy, and he has to pay $400 a month, which he hates.

He has actually set her up to make her seem like a bad mother, so he can gain custody of the boy and not pay any more child support. It's an unending battle.

For that matter, most of the divorced guys I know say they will never get married again and some of them are close to hating women.

"You are here because you are thinking about getting married. Perhaps one of your friends did you a favor, and sent you here. If you are going to be the higher-earner spouse in the marriage, then this article is for you.

Taking the Plunge

"Before you take the plunge there are a few things about marriage that you need to be aware of. The institution of marriage as we know it is no more. It has undergone drastic changes in the last 50 years. What used to be a life long commitment, unbreakable barring the most severe circumstances, has been relegislated into something entirely new thanks to the lobbying efforts of radical feminists and the divorce industry. In trying to to make divorce 'fail-safe' for homemaker/lower-earner spouses, the bad ones included, they have made marriage 'unsafe' for virtually everyone else.

"Marriage today is a temporary union of two individuals where the exit costs are highly asymmetrical. What does that mean? It means that upon the dissolution of the marriage, one spouse generally makes off like a bandit, while the other is pushed into a life of unending poverty, abridged civil rights, and being two paychecks away from arrears, contempt, and prison.

"If someone is made to suffer like that upon the divorce, you probably think that he/she deserved it. Perhaps they were a terrible spouse? Perhaps they cheated? If only this was so. Karma, you see, has nothing to do with it. That was the case during the olden days of 'fault-only' divorce when the spouse who was at fault for wrecking the marriage got penalized during the divorce. With those old divorces , if the at-fault party was the higher-earning spouse, they were made to pay alimony and surrender many marital assets over to the wronged party. Similarly, if the at-fault party was the homemaker/lower-earner spouse, then they were made to forfeit any alimony and forced to accept a smaller share of the martial assets. Morality was a big factor in who made out better and who made out worse

Enter Marriage 2.0

"During the second half of the 20th century all of the ground rules governing marriage were changed. The laws were changed to such an extent that that we can no longer call it 'marriage' as it was known through the millennia. We have to distinguish this mutated institution with a new name. We will call it Marriage 2.0.

All that stuff about the moral carrot and stick is out of the window. Basically the higher-earner spouse is always at-fault (i.e. made to hand over assets and pay alimony), and the lower-earner spouse is always the 'innocent one' (i.e. gets most of the assets and a cut of the ex’s future salaries). It doesn’t matter if the lower-earner spouse was the one having an affair or is the one filing the divorce. Therein lies the problem with modern family laws. You can be the best breadwinner spouse in the world, take good care of your family, and stay true to your marriage vows, and you will still get shafted in the divorce. It’s a suckers bet for the good guy (or the good gal).

"Here are some things working against you, when you are the primary breadwinner spouse within Marriage 2.0, and your spouse decides to walk out (cash out?) on you:

"1. Women Filing Majority of Divorces – 66-75% of all divorces are now filed by wives. Publications like Cosmo love to harp on men for having a 'fear of commitment'. Guys must ask themselves, why commit when it’s the other party who can’t live up to the commitment 3/4 of the time?

"2. Unilateral Divorce – This is also known as no-fault divorce, with no recourse for the other spouse. There is nothing you can do legally speaking to stop a divorce.

"3. Domestic Violence Fraud : Presumed guilty until proven innocent. DV laws are now widely used as the 'opening chess move' of many divorces. Once the husband is removed from the primary residence he never comes back, and she gets the primary residence in the asset split. Also known as the Federal VAWA Legislation, this new unconstitutional law has been fraudulently misused by divorcing spouses ever since it came out. There are no equivalent laws to protect men in abusive situations.

"4. Decriminalization of Adultery - Adultery is no longer a crime. However the failure to pay alimony to an adulterous spouse is. Go figure.

"5. Losing Custody of Children – Custody of the children is most often awarded to the lower-earner spouse in family courts. Basically this amounts to: Goodbye Daddy, hello ATM. When you read of cases like this October 2009 case where a little boy’s mother was arrested for prostitution and his stable/employed dad was still denied custody, you quickly understand how this loaded dice always rolls.

"6. Nonenforcement of Visitation Rights – States enforce payment obligations by non-custodial parents with an iron fist, however they don’t lift a finger to enforce the other side of the bargain, which is the visitation rights of non-custodial parents. If you are going to police one parent’s obligation to pay, why not police the other parent’s obligation to allow regular meaningful access to one’s children?

"7. Children as Cash cows - The National Organization for Women (NOW) has been lobbying against Shared Parenting bills in many states. Why would NOW do that? What is more equal than shared parenting? The reason is that NOW’s brand of feminism is no longer about equality, but about a zero-sum game for resources. Children are cash-cows, and NOW will be damned if they allow Shared Parenting to stop the cash-flow.

"8. No-Fault Alimony – In many states, fault is no longer a factor in awarding alimony. So there are plenty of cases of 'spouse-A cheats, but spouse-B pays'. In what other area of contract law does the party breaking the contract gets paid, and the innocent party gets punished? Only in Marriage 2.0!

"9. One Sided Alimony: Ok so the ex-wife got used to a certain standard of living, so we will make the ex-husband pay alimony. Fine. But how about the things the ex-husband got used to? Do men have a right to be 'accustomed' to stuff too? If not, why not? Shouldn’t there be some sort of reciprocal reverse-alimony payment by the ex-wife in the form of weekly cleaning, a hot meal 7 nights a week, and 'romantic companionship' services for the ex-husband? How come one spouse is obligated to provide something that the other was used to during the marriage, and the other isn’t obligated to provide anything?

"10. Lifetime Alimony – Contrary to common belief, Alimony isn’t on its way out. There was a period in the 1970’s when no-fault laws were first enacted when a few states put limitations on how/when it could be awarded. However since then there have been a concerted effort by powers that be such as the influential American Law Institute (ALI) for bringing alimony back in a big way. Here is a New York Times article covering the release of a landmark 2002 ALI report which recommended broadening and deepening alimony awards across all 50 states. Right on queue there are now reports of alimony horror stories coming out from many states where the breadwinner ex-spouses are ordered to pay lifetime alimony. There are also cases like the on in this Wall Street Journal article where long settled divorce cases are re-opened and modified under the new pro-alimony paradigms. Paul Taylor featured in the WSJ story had his ex-wife take him back to court in 2009, three decades after their original 1982 divorce when both parties had agreed to waive all past/present/future alimony. The court reversed that original 1982 divorce judgement and awarded lifetime alimony to the ex-wife. It was ordered that this new alimony be deducted out of Paul Taylor’s pension and paid monthly to a woman he hadn’t even seen in three decades. Mr Taylor is now in bankruptcy and can look forward to spending his golden years working as a Greeter in Wal-Mart.

"11. Paternity Fraud – If you didn’t catch right away that your kids aren’t really your kids but instead were 'sired' by some guy that your wife was having an affair with, you are out of luck in most states. What’s worse if your cheating wife divorces you, you can bring the DNA tests to court, and you will still be forced to pay 18-23 years of child support for these kids who are some other guy’s spawn. Read this case of the Toronto man forced to pay child-support for twins that even the court acknowledged are not his but ordered him to keep paying anyway. In no other area of the law do we punish the innocent victim for the conduct of two other people

"Even more shocking is this New York Times article about a Pennsylvania man ordered to keep paying child support after his adulterous wife divorced him, and married the very guy she had the affair and conceived the child with. Today the bio-father, the ex-wife, and their bio-child live together under a single roof as a biologically intact family and guess who is still paying them monthly child support? Yes, the cuckold ex-husband still has to pay every month or go to jail. You can’t make this stuff up. Even cuckold porn doesn’t get this vile.

Conclusion

"Marriage 2.0 is a very unequal contract where the legal power balance both within the marriage and after the divorce is heavily biased against the primary breadwinner. Given that this is today’s legal reality why would you want to sign such a one sided contract? There are simply no benefits in marriage for the primary breadwinner under these Marriage 2.0 rules. None whatsoever. Ask yourself now: “What is in it for me?”. If the above hasn’t yet convinced you to avoid this mutated institution that has become a a giant legal trap, then you owe it to yourself to keep learning more about the risks of saying 'I do'."

7 comments:

James
said...

It went from "..my constant friend, my faithful partner and my love from this day forward. In the presence of God, our family and friends, "

to the presence of government.

The Bible says in all cases if you can help it, never say an oath. This is because if you say one, you actually have to keep it. Even more so if you do it to your God (who says about a dozen times in the Bible he detests and absolutely hates divorce) or your family and friends (who would ostracize you, or look down on you because you broke a sacred contract).

The God aspect is taken out because more people are less religious, and the fact that the religious neighbor you might have might be Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, so a vow to the Christian God doesn't mean anything to them, and they have no stake in your marriage lasting your lifetime.

The family and friends aspect is also taken out. Chances are, if you are a multi-generational American, you have many divorces in your family. The nuclear family is fractured, and as a result so is the extended family. You have no pressure from them to keep up your marriage, or a role model to look towards.

In essence the reason why those marriage vows worked is that they were made in front of God (a being and ideal higher than the self to look towards) and in front of family and friends (people he loves and is loved by that he respects). You remove those and you remove the soul of marriage.

Marriage counselors and other people constantly look inside of the marriage "You only need to work harder, you need to please your wife/husband more, if you did X action you can get sex more, etc, etc."

They missed the point that it was society and their God that keeps together a marriage in the long term. The external factors. Making a vow internally to each other, and then breaking them, you have 0 consequence. Which is what we see. Make a vow to a society and God that will make sure you keep your end of the bargain, or they will punish/ostracize you, then the vow is more meaningful.

A vow without the means to uphold it is just verbose flattery. Nice to the ears, but ultimately empty.

The verse you quoted was in Matthew 5:34. In Matthew 23:16-22, several chapters later, Jesus actually gives a direct example of swearing an oath to an altar of God as opposed to swearing an oath to a gift on the altar. He says it is better to swear by the altar.

So if they are in the same book, and in the later chapters Jesus clearly gives an example saying one oath is superior to another, it is not merely the existence of an oath that is a sin. He is talking about something else.

Also in the same exact chapter of your verse, in Matthew 5:17 he says "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."

And Deuteronomy clearly has a law about keeping your oaths if you have made any.

Using Matthew 5:33 as a catch-all to not make oaths, vows, promises, or fulfill obligations or responsibilities is the wrong reading of it. It means don't make oaths or swear on the Lord, taking his name in vain, knowing full well you have no chance of upholding that promise. Think of that people that constantly say "I swear to God Bob, I'm good for it" who are always lying despite invoking God's name.

Matthew Henry's commentary on these verses explains it better than I do and they are found free on biblegateway.com

Amen to this article. Too late for me: my life is screwed, but hopefully it will convince some younger guys. The State care nothing about justice... not even for the "best interests of the child" ... jus

they only care about the money flow. I hope this message is getting out to the young guys.

Canada is the heartland for liberal faggotry and feminism and trust me, boys - this will be a short-lived phenomenon. Back in the good ol' days, after a divorce the woman went to the bank and the man went to the cleaners. It doesn't work that way up here any more in Canada - if you get divorced, a line gets drawn down the middle and both the spouses take the hit for a failed marriage. What happened to marriage 2.0 in liberal Canada?I couple things, I think: one was that men with nothing left to lose - have no problems loading a gun and shooting their gold digging ex-wives. Of course the feminist courts issued restraining orders - but those mean nothing to men that have lost all.The other is that the lie of the femcnut is pretty much out of the bag up here. Young ladies have seen their mothers put through the wringer of divorce - or worse, cash in and reducing themselves to gold digging sluts - and they want no part of it.Traditional marriage is not coming back in Canada...but Marriage 2.0 is not selling well either. What I am seeing is a lot of common law marriages that have steel plated pre-nups to enforce the marriage.